build-in - general ideas and questions

This forum is pretty amazing... a lot of very useful information is available, what a great resource. I've learned a lot reading it over the past few days. Anyway, I am building a new facility in Austin, Texas, at a music school opening up very soon. I've got a fairly detailed description of the spaces, with some vague plans for retrofitting the space. If any of you all have a chance, I'd very much appreciate whatever feedback you could offer. I've tried to address all the issues in the DON'T EVEN think ABOUT POSTING before you READ THIS post, and I'm sorry if I overlooked anything. Budget: $3000, maybe higher if need be, with labor supplied by myself and family members, friends and clients who owe me money. Between family members, friends, and clients who owe me I could build a PYRAMID. Picture: I can't figure out how to put it in the message body so it's an attachment. Studio description: The studio is 19'x23' with two doors. One door is a double door that opens to a carpeted hallway. The other opens to the control room. All walls are painted cinderblock. The floor in the studio is a raised floor, some sort of modular tile system on adjustable jacks. The real floor is concrete and about 1' below the entrances. The ceiling is a hung ceiling, office-style, above which is a concrete ceiling, with structural ribs (maybe hiding i-beams) approx 3 ft apart running the length of the room. Ceiling is 13.5' above the real floor. The room was used as an IT room and has its own dedicated air conditioning and electrical circuit. Plan: I'm planning on ripping out the raised floor. I'm not too worried about isolation (this is a music school where loud=OK, and the walls and floor are concrete). I would like to put down pergo or parquet, depending on whether we can find it affordably. I was thinking about bass traps like these: http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?t=534 for the corners. I will build an iso booth into one corner. That's basically my treatment goal for the opening. Once we are up and running, I was thinking we'd put up some wall treatments. I've worked with hanging hinged panels that are wood on one side and cloth-covered absorbative material like OC 703 or something on the other... I also saw a design recently that had an absorbative surface in a big frame, with smaller wooden panels (almost like louvers) that could have their angle adjusted individually. I also like F. Alton Everest's Poly design. I've never seen them in use but I like the idea of all the exposed wood instead of painted cinderblock. Control room description: The control room is 15'x18', with two doors, one of which goes to a carpeted hallway and the other goes to the studio. All walls are painted cinderblock. There is a narrow window on the north end of the room. The floor is carpet over what is likely a concrete subfloor. The ceiling is a hung ceiling, office-style, above which is a concrete ceiling, with structural ribs (maybe hiding i-beams) approx 3 ft apart running the length of the room. Ceiling is 12.5' above the real floor. Plan: My main concern is getting the studio right, but the control room needs to be a good listening environment eventually. My buddy F Alton Everest says that 12'x15'x10.5 ceiling is a good listening room so I will shoot for that eventually... but it's likely that I will leave the ceiling alone until the studio is done. Studio questions: Despite the situation, would it be worthwhile to float the floor? How likely is it that the ceiling will be a problem? Will it be likely that I will need to put in ceiling clouds or some other sort of hung treatment? What are your thoughts on the proposed wall treatments? Should we save the hung ceiling's acoustical tiles? Will they be useful to add mass to bass traps or something? Control room questions: Any obvious issues? Thank you!

OK, so this project is underway and I thought I'd post a revised action plan. STUDIO - I'm going to try to leave the floor as concrete, though it seems it wil be very live. I know rugs are not great dampeners but they do help - and I don't want a dead space. - I'd like to build some polys per Everest's intructions to hang on the wall, to provide more natural reflection and break up the room modes. I may even try to make them modular, like on a shower curtain rod system, with weatherstripping on the back so they will be airtight with the wall. If I did that I could vary the acoustics of the room by hanging curtains or absorbing panels on the rod system. - I'm going to put up a few ceiling clouds to pick up some reflection, and to make the distance between floor and ceiling variable. The distance between the ducting and ceiling is variable so some of it will just be exposed, and hopefully not too resonant. -I'm putting in bass traps, like this: http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?t=534 CONTROL ROOM - Floor will be pergo, raised with separate channels for data, audio and power. 2x4 footing on a layer of dense rubber, with a layer of subfloor, then a moisture/vapor barrier, then a layer of this foam underflooring, then pergo. -Bass traps in the front corners (doors in the back corners make this impossible). -Diffusion panel in the back, vertical slats per F Alton Everest's design. It can be tailored to the room acoustics. -Ceiling clouds as in the studio. Thoughts, comments, perspective? Thanks! Oh yeah, here are some recent pictures of the space. [EDIT] I have no idea why the Control Room pictures are oriented incorrectly... the previews show them right. Oh well, you will get the idea.

If you're not dearly in love with that dividing wall, you might want to consider one of these (modified to fit your overall space) instead - http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... /Plans.htm Your intended layout doesn't seem to provide any visual between CR and LR, and parallel surfaces mainly make it necessary to use more acoustic treatment to avoid flutter artifacts. Just a thought... Steve